Novel

About the authors:

Dr. Shadab Ahmed was born and brought up in the resilient and magical North-East India, growing up between guns and roses. Moving pan-India at various ages, his voracious appetite for knowledge and wisdom led him into books, refining his perception and comprehension about the good, bad and wicked in life. He retains an inner child and has a combustible imagination. He is more adept into the administrative side of things and keeps a heavy hand and heart, though surgeons were always meant to be delicate and refined.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya Hails from the tribal, Naxalite infested & forested areas of Central India. She is naturally a keen observer and grew up having seen the good and bad in life. Despite all this, she is a big dreamer and nothing satiates her curiosity and perception towards the various bright and grey shades of life. She is a fashionista and retains both a strong and delicate feminine side as well as a vigorous and robust rugged heart. She is a pan-romantic, left-winged feminist vegan. She is an outstanding clinician and academician, boasting of national and international published researches corresponding to her specialisation.

Here is our conversation with Dr. Shadab Ahmed & Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya.

Q1. How will you describe your book ‘A Quatrain of Moods’ in your own words, highlighting those aspects that make it unique?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – As this is my first published book, this book is exclusively special to me. I drafted and composed this book in the form of quatrains, using images/pictures to disclose the story. Each picture in the book conveys a subtle message in itself, keeping the story sporadically abstruse. The interpretation is left open to the readers, different individuals will expound and perceive
the anecdotes in conflicting ways. What makes this book unique is the fact that a majority of moods & emotions divulged in this book are actual life events, which happened with someone somewhere.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – I remember the time when Shad first told me about this book he was working on. At that time, he had created and drafted some 70 quatrains, and he was running out of ideas. As doctors, we have limited social life outside of work, and at large, life is busy. That is where I stepped in to help him. Observing the ambience and environment, I gave him certain images and themes to work on. Shad ingeniously drafted and gave words and narratives to those pictures & images, he generated a story. This book is unique for me because this was when poetry started sensationally exciting me. I delved into it deeper, and it refined my aesthetic sense towards life. Gradually, I started reading a variety of poems, started translating poems from Prakrit, Pali, Devanagari and Sanskrit into English. I will say I found a new hobby and passion. I have never looked back since. Language and Literature are powerful arts of expression. It beautifully tells what the naked eye can’t comprehend.

Q2. How do you think that your book differs from other books on the same subject already on the market?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – Every writer/author has the tribal capacity to be cynical or sanguine, as per the situtation. Writers are people, and people in general are unorthodox, they all carry different perception and insight. I will substantiate it with an example. Let’s say you left your house to go somewhere and came across a cow on the street, roaming aimlessly. Maybe you think that the cow has escaped from somewhere, and its owner will be looking for it. Another gentleman will see the cow and believe that what nuisance an animal loose on the street is creating for the traffic. I will see the cow and contemplate what noble life that animal has, that it can afford to wander aimlessly without worrying about goals and deadlines that we are accustomed to. Apply the same dialectic to readers and how they interpret a book. The emotions, perception and tenor conveyed in the book are the same antediluvian, but how you interpret is what you will believe it is about. There can be intrepid brilliance or a fearful gloom depending on your elucidation.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – I think Shad has brilliantly put it forth, it is all about perception and interpretation. This book is different and richly illustrated with so many beautiful images. The colored pages breath life into the book and the characters. I will advise the readers to certainly give this book a try for some fresh and realist perspective.

Q3. This question is a bit separate, do you like writing freelance articles in your field?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – I write on a variety of topics and do some blogging whenever time permits. I am active on various national and international literary forums and clubs. Poetry is just one of my extra-academic fascination and passion, I am equally proficient and engrossed in World History (encompassing the British Raj & British Empire, Mexican-American War, Apartheid, Byzantine Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire, Macedonian and Ptolemaic Egypt, Delhi Sultanate, Empire of Brazil under Dom Pedro I, Seljuk Empire of Oghuz Turks, House of Tudor under the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France), International Relations and Geo-Politics (mainly topics dealing with Realism/Liberalism, Traditionalism/Behaviouralism, Neorealism/Neoliberalism, Rationalism/Reflectivism), Philosophy ( involving Epistemology, Metaphysics and Pragmatism), Occult Studies (engirdling Akashic Records, Christian & Hermetic Kabbalah, and Oneiromancy). When I say am a humble scholar of these subjects, it dosen’t implies that I am a naive fresherman. I have extensive applied and implicit a-priori knowledge on these topics and subjects. Apart from my poetries, I am writing an anthology on “Occult Studies & Magic” as well. Progress is undoubtly slow and sluggish, and quality time is an assorted luxury these days.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – Shad has always been a weird and geek types, but fortunately am more into clinicals. My experience in writing articles corresponds with my Original Researches in Aesthetic and Cosmetic Dentistry. I have more than 25 articles and researches published in major national and international journals, and several others on-going at various stages. Extra-academically, I translate poems from a variety of Indian regional languages into standardised English. I am also drafting a comprehensive Manual on Restorative Dentistry & Endodontics, my specialization post Dentistry. Me and Shad have already authored a book together titled “Lasers in Dental Practice”. We both have worked together on several researches and articles successfully.

Q4. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – My spirit animal has to be the “tiger”. The tiger is all about strength, fierceness, shrewd calculative perception and the ability to prevail in any condition and circumstance. The tiger inspires you to preserve mastery over your domain and sphere, whether that’s a field of knowledge, a skill, or even mastery over yourself in some way. In becoming a master, you can fulfill your potential on Earth, becoming the person your spirit intends to be in this lifetime.The imperceptible and camouflaged tiger spirit under my skin gives me strength and confidence to dominate bravely in any adversity. It infuses lunatic courage and a maniac determination inside me when things are not in my favor.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – My spirit animal will be a butterfly. Why because a butterfly represents change, transformation, hope, and positivity. Celtic mythology regards butterflies as a symbol of the soul. There’s an old Irish saying that goes “Butterflies are souls of the dead waiting to pass through Purgatory.” They are thought to be able to cross into other realms and also represent transformation, creation, and re-birth. My life has been sort of a re-birth from difficult circumstances, and I am fully embracing it.

Q5. You both are doctors but does your family support your career as a writer?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – I am a Doctor by profession, an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon by specialization. I don’t have much of family left, so thankfully can devote some time to my literary and scholastic pursuits. Work and schedules keeps me busy, and I devote my full energy to work. You gotta rise up to the occasion when the occasion comes calling. Apart from being a Doctor, am an astute and cunning financial planner as well, and have good investments in real estate, market- linked funds and forex. I know the deferential power of compounding.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – It is tough to manage both family and academics, so there comes friction now and then. Thankfully, I am blessed with a sweet “Nani” whom I absolutely adore. So my time is spent with her when I am not working. If you mean blood-relations, then yes I do have a family. But I have always been known to make my own family, people who get bonded to your heart. Blood is thicker than water, but family isn’t just about blood. Family is about faith and loyalty, and who you love. If you don’t have those things, I don’t care what the blood says. You are not family.

Q6. Do you believe in writer’s block?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – Yes, I do believe in writer’s block. Frequently, I seem to be inflicted by the ethereal block as well. I reckon “perfectionism” is what causes the writer’s block. It is not all psychological as some may believe, but often you simply run out of ideas. Your perception is what you see around you. If you have seen all around you, nothing excites you anymore. To break the writer’s block, simply follow your heart over the mind for a day. It never deceives you, it never leads you astray, it never disappoints you.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – Sometimes even I get writer’s block when am doing my researches. Most often, it is simply the lack of trying harder, or something you are afraid to touch at the moment, inconsequential be the cause. Picture an examination scenerio, you have to complete a book. But you keep making excuses within your mind that you will do it tomorrow morning, then later in the afternoon, then finally by the night. I guess the human mind behaves totally irrational sometimes, but who has ever understood the human mind.

Q7. Any messages for your readers?

Dr. Shadab Ahmed – I just want my readers to be happy and content, wherever they are based. I will ask them to live, not just to mere survive. Follow your heart, follow your passions. Be a good and compassionate human being. Live old or live young, but make sure to live free.

Dr. Malwiika Sisodiya – I will urge our readers to surely go through the book. It is a beautiful book with beautiful emotions. Rest, Shad has conveyed well to the audience. Love you all!

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